The Citizen's Guide to the Supreme Court

Brett and Nazim are two attorneys who hate being attorneys. In lieu of practicing law, they have instead developed a podcast to help make the Supreme Court more accessible to the average person. Each week, Brett and Nazim will discuss current Supreme Court cases and how they affect your daily life, while also ruminating on how their dreams of fame and fortune resulted in jokes about Star Wars and wondering how Ruth Bader Ginsburg thinks about Facebook.
This Podcast is for entertainment purposes only and is not legal advice. If anything you hear leads you to believe you need legal advice, please contact an attorney immediately.

With Nazim on vacation, this week's episode features special guest Lindsey C. (@DCInbox), who monitors Congress and Congressional communications for her website DC Inbox. Lindsey and Brett discuss the logistics and timeline for an Affordable Care Act/Obamacare repeal, new Supreme Court appointees, and current Supreme Court cases on districts and the Voting Rights Act.

This week's episode runs back America's favorite game, where Nazim tries to guess whether or not horrible lawyer mistakes automatically entitle defendants to new trials. Brett and Nazim also cover the case of Lee v. U.S., where an immigration attorney forgot to inform the client that a guilty plea would result in deportation, and Buck v. Davis, where an attorney put on an expert that shared horribly racist opinions with the jury. Law starts at (03:31).

The War on Terror takes a weird turn this week, as Brett and Nazim cover the cases of Ziglar v. Abbasi, Turkmen v. Abbasi, & Ashcroft v. Abasi, which decide whether or not enemy combatants who were wrongfully detained at Guantanamo Bay may sue government officials for civil damages. Law starts at (06:19).

In this mini-episode, Nazim checks in from across the pond to discuss White v. Pauley, the Court's new test for imposing civil liability on government officials, and the mechanics of eating oneself to death.

When history looks back on the case of NLRB v. SW General, Inc., it will serve as a weird time capsule for our current government, featuring bipartisan passive aggressiveness, poor statutory construction, and Congress doing nothing. Brett and Nazim untangle this mess while also covering the failed lawsuit to appoint Merrick Garland and the potential undoing of the filibuster. Law starts at (04:45).

This week's episode covers Brady material, which is a fancy way of describing exculpatory evidence that prosecutors are Constitutionally required to hand over to criminal defendants prior to trial. Brett and Nazim discuss the origins of this doctrine and how that impacts the current cases of Turner v. U.S. and Overton v. U.S. Law starts at (04:45).